Ancient Geeks

We return to the 24th century for the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. We start our discussion with an overview of this pivotal season. What did we expect, when we watched season two for the first time, after the few highs and frequent lows of season one? How well did it live up to our expectations? What were the critical improvements made this season? And what might have happened if this had been the last season of...

We finish our discussion of the first three Earthsea novels by Ursula Le Guin with The Farthest Shore. We see Ged, the magician, as an older man, risen to Archmage. There's something terrible happening in the world, extinguishing magic and driving people insane. Looks like the makings of a classic quest! Except, as with the other two Earthsea books that preceded it, The Farthest Shore is anything but your typical fantasy, and this ...

Continuing our coverage of Ursula K. Le Guin's first three Earthsea books, we turn to The Tombs Of Atuan. This time, the focus is on a female protagonist, Tenar, and her very dark coming-of-age story. She's the high priestess of one of the most depressing, oppressive religions in fantasy literature. Nevertheless, the adults in the temple keep telling her of how wonderful it is to be the spiritual leader of a faith centered on a lig...

We begin our three-part coverage of Ursula K. Le Guin's classic fantasy series, starting with A Wizard Of Earthsea. It starts with a story arc that may sound familiar, a young magician finding his way in the world. But, as you'll hear, it's so much more than just another coming of age story with spells and dragons.

Steven read the Earthsea Trilogy (it was only the three books then) when he was young. Tom just read them. Both of us ...

The popularity of the original series of five Planet of the Apes movies meant there would be more than just a chain of sequels. In this episode, we talk about the POTA spin-offs of the 70s, including a short-lived TV series, a cartoon series that was definitely not written for children, and a series of black and white magazines from Marvel Comics. 

Plus, we talk about the enduring appeal of the original series of movies. Beyon...

The fifth and final movie of the original Planet of the Apes raised expectations. It's going to be the last movie...and the title says that there will be a battle for the entire planet...and there are apes and mutants fighting on the movie poster. Great Cornelius' ghost! Bring on the battle!

What the movie delivered was a bit smaller.  Battle of the Planet of the Apes picked up just a few years after Conquest of the Planet of ...

Ever wonder how we went from the swinging Sixties and Seventies to the brutal oppression of apes over humans? Conquest of the Planet of the Apes tells that story. The child of Cornelius and Zira, whom we saw as a newborn in the last movie, is now all grown up now. He doesn't like what he sees, in a world where apes are enslaved, humans are decadent, the architecture is brutal, and turtlenecks are all the rage. As you might expect f...

Of course there would be more sequels after Beneath The Planet Of The Apes, even though it was designed to be the last. In fact, the chief purpose of Escape From The Planet Of The Apes was to make more sequels possible. World ended? Just go back in time before it was ended!

Come back with us to that time when Cornelius and Zira (plus unnamed baby) crash land on 1970s, and then get mistreated. And then turned into beloved celebritie...

We wrap up our series in which we look at the first movies of directors who later made the classics of geek cinema. In this episode, we discuss John Carpenter's student film, later expanded for theatrical release, Dark Star. It's a low budget science fiction dark comedy in which a burned-out crew flies from planet to planet, destroying any that they deem "unstable." Of course, nothing's more unstable than these space cadets. 

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We continue our series about the first movies made by directors who later made the classics of geek cinema. In this episode, we discuss Duel, a TV movie made by a very young Steven Spielberg. Starring Dennis Weaver, it's a deadly cat-and-mouse conflict between an average Joe in a Plymouth Valiant and the driver of the most monstrous of trucks.

In this early effort, what elements of Spielberg's style can you see that would later app...

We begin a series of episodes about the first movies from directors who later made the classics of geek cinema.  In this first episode, we take a look at George Lucas' first feature film, THX-1138. A dystopian drama starring Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasance, this movie was based on Lucas' student film, Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB. (Frankly, we're stumped why Lucas didn't stick with this title.) The backstory is fascin...

Harrison Ford and Sean Connery? More Nazi villains? A Grail quest In spite of the disappointment of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, we said, "Sign us up!" And it was glorious!

A return to what made Raiders of the Lost Ark great! Exciting action scenes! Organic humor! Two different types of academics! Disturbing questions during Indy's faculty review! It's all here.  

Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a ...

Of course there was going to be a sequel...

We had high hopes for the second Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Spielberg, Lucas, Ford...How could it go wrong?

As it turns out, it could go very badly. We debate how badly, and what were the reasons why this sequel failed to come close to the original. 

Was this Tom's first case of sequelitis? Leaving all the criticisms aside, what did we enjoy about the ...

You can hear the soundtrack start to play in your head already...

No history of early geekery would be complete without Raiders Of The Lost Ark. In this episode, we talk about the roots of this movie in serials like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, in the pulp magazines like Weird Tales and Argosy, and in radio dramas like The Shadow and Suspense. And of course, we talk about the movie.

What did we expect, when we heard that a high ad...

We take a detour from our normal reminiscences of geekery past to recruit our favorite Star Trek crews. Across all of Star Trek, from the original series to the modern era, whom do we pick for captain, first officer, chief engineer, and all the other leadership positions in a Star Trek crew? Who are the worst picks for these positions? Which ship do each of us want to staff? And whom would we hire from outside the Star Trek univers...

Aha! You thought we were done talking about Harlan Ellison! You fools!

Actually, this episode is less about Ellison, and more about the contents of the anthology, Dangerous Visions, which Ellison organized and edited. The book is full of stories from well-known writers, such as Philip K. Dick, Damon Knight, Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, and others, as well as lesser-known authors whose work Ellison decided to promote. Dangerous Visio...

Planet Of The Apes was a classic. Beneath The Planet Of The Apes was supposed to be the sequel to end all ape sequels, just as World War I was supposed to be the war to end all wars. How did both of those efforts work out?

Beneath The Planet Of The Apes carried the deep distrust of human nature into another film. But now, with another astronaut (who looked a lot like the first astronaut), a first act that looked a lot like the firs...

In an earlier episode, we said that 2001: A Space Odyssey was one of the greatest SF movies ever made. Arguably, the greatest. Also one of the greatest films, period. And then in 1984 came the sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact.

Was it as good as the original? Definitely not. But was it a good movie? A decent sequel? Good science fiction? An effective adaptation of the book sequel that Arthur C. Clarke wrote? We'll answer all t...

In this episode, the last of our four-part series on Harlan Ellison, Steven and Tom discuss more of Ellison's works on the big and small screen.

Come for A Boy And His Dog, both the novella and the movie version. It's the rare film version of anything that Ellison wrote, and it's also not bad. You want to know what's really bad?

Stay for The Starlost, the monumentally awful Canadian science fiction TV series, based on Ellison's ide...